Nicolas Cage gives a wild and unhinged performance in his new movie, 'Mandy,' and the dark past of its director was the inspiration

But it's the director of the movie, Panos Cosmatos, and
coping with the passing of his parents, that led to Cage's wild
role.

Few can top Nicolas Cage in the crazy department, but the actor
met his match with the director Panos Cosmatos.

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The filmmaker has built a fan base thanks to his beautifully
demented storytelling, and that's only with one feature film
under his belt.

2010's "Beyond the Black Rainbow," Cosmatos' feature debut, gave
audiences a twisted and visually stunning sci-fi movie about a
young woman's journey to escape a weird institute run by an even
weirder doctor. The beautiful sets and costumes matched with the
trippy music and cinematography to help introduce Cosmatos as a
new original voice to genre filmmaking.

Eight years later, Cosmatos has finally returned with a new
movie, "Mandy" (opening in theaters on Friday). And though this
one continues his love of strange characters, gorgeous visuals,
and thrilling soundtracks (this time using rock and roll versus
the electronica sound of "Black Rainbow"), it will get a bigger
profile with the casting of Cage as the star of the movie.

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caption

"Beyond the Black Rainbow."

source

Magnet Releasing

Here Cage plays Red Miller,
a quiet man who lives in California's Shadow Mountains, where he
cuts down trees with a chainsaw all day and comes home every
night to Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), his true love. But when a
religious cult kills Mandy, Red goes into a psychotic rage,
killing everyone (human and supernatural) who was involved in her
death. That includes battling bad guys with an ax he built
himself and having a chainsaw duel.

But behind the insanity in both "Beyond the Black Rainbow" and
"Mandy" is a lot of pain. Cosmatos channeled the depression of
losing both of his parents into writing the scripts for the
movies.

The death of his father in 2005 was particularly tough, seeing
his connection to movies. George P. Cosmatos was the director of
such classic Hollywood titles as "Rambo: First Blood Part II,"
"Cobra," "Leviathan," and "Tombstone."

"My love of movies comes from him," Cosmatos told Business
Insider. "He loved movies more than anything. He was obsessed
with them. We watched them together up until the end."

He said blackout drinking binges with friends was how he dealt
with the loss of his mother, but after his father died he turned
to storytelling, writing "Black Rainbow" and "Mandy"
simultaneously.

"I wasn't aware of the therapeutic aspect of it at the time, but
it helped me get through in a big way," Cosmatos said of the
scriptwriting.

"Black Rainbow" got off the ground quicker financially, so it was
made first. When Cosmatos went back to the "Mandy" script, he
realized he couldn't finish it.

"Me writing 'Black Rainbow' was me alone in a windowless room
going insane," he said. For "Mandy" he needed to be
collaborative.

He brought on a friend, the filmmaker Aaron Stewart-Ahn, to
finish the script with him. And Cosmatos also felt that once he
cast the Red Miller part there would also be collaboration there.

Though it would take years, the money to make "Mandy" finally
came when Cage signed on. Cosmatos said at first the two had an
impasse over whether Cage would play Red, as the actor wanted, or
the cult leader Jeremiah. But Cosmatos said a dream one night (in
which Cage was Red) sold him on Cage playing the role.

caption

Cage and Panos Cosmatos on the set of "Mandy."

source

RLJE Films

The two got together and fleshed
out the rest of the Red character. And though some of the most
bizarre parts of the movie seem like classic Cage, they in fact
came from Cosmatos.

A scene in which Red enters a bathroom, recovers a bottle of
vodka he had hid away, and begins to chug it, pour it over his
wounds, and scream was all Cosmatos' idea.

"I always wanted to have a scene that felt like that lost decade
of mine and evokes me drinking with my friends in a desperate
attempt to black out my consciousness," he said.

And there's the first line Cage delivers in the movie. He walks
into the house, sees Mandy, and delivers a knock-knock joke:

Red: Knock-knock.

Mandy: Who's there?

Red: Erik Estrada.

Mandy: Erik Estrada who?

Red: Erik Estrada from "CHiPs."

That was not improvised but from the script.

"When he came on the movie I went through the script and rewrote
some of the dialogue," Cosmatos said, pointing out that the
knock-knock joke was something his friend said that he never
forgot. "Some of the things I just wanted to hear Nicolas Cage
deliver."

Cosmatos doesn't know which movie he will pursue next. In many
ways his first two movies have gotten him over the dark times in
his life. But one thing he knows for sure, he says, is that he
won't be doing anything for a Hollywood studio. That's one of his
biggest memories from watching his father work when he was a kid.

"What I learned about the industry was listening to him argue
with people on the phone," he said. "Battling with producers and
executives for creative freedom. That's very important to me."